It is a common practice in the agricultural field both for food production, ornamental shrubs and trees, and lawn grasses to accelerate growth by the application of chemical fertilizers, e.g., nitrates, phosphates, and potassium compounds, and also chemical materials such as pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides, etc., that can be toxic. Further, it is a present practice to overload the crops with these chemical materials and to repeatedly treat most crops multiple times in a growing season (typically four times, may be as many as eight times depending on the pant and location), because these water soluble substances would wash off. The significant amount of runoff means that users must use more of these substances and apply more times, which increased both the monetary and labor cost. The runoff also results in these chemical materials finding their way into the soil and the ground water, and into rivers, lakes, ponds and ultimately the bays and oceans. While these chemicals do enhance the growth of desirable plants, the runoff has toxic effects. Particularly, in that it causes algae blooms, which are the overproduction of a variety of aquatic plants and microorganisms. These algae blooms decrease the oxygen carrying capacity of the water to such an extent that they cause depletion of oxygen or hypoxia for mollusks, mussels, crabs, and other food animals. Ultimately impacting fish and then fish eating mammals such as seals, whales and human.
In fact, these algae blooms create areas termed “dead zones” that are a result of the hypoxia that occurs in these unusual algae blooms. Dead Zones caused by these algae blooms in the Gulf of Mexico are bigger than the state of New Jersey, and are growing every year. The Chesapeake Bay also has experienced substantial dead zones that are growing every year from the same cause. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is presently establishing new standards to reduce the allowable amounts of these toxic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides that can be applied to a field.
Recent studies which have shown that these algae blooms are a specific result of toxic chemical fertilizer runoffs. The algae blooms include algae species that produce domoic acid, which is a neurotoxic substance that causes paralysis, dyskinesia and ultimately death in harbor seals, sea lions and pelicans. Further, it has been shown that domoic acid causes Amnesic Shell Fish Poisoning, (ASP). Although these animals do not eat the algae per se, they do feed on the mussels, crabs, mollusks, and fish that feed directly or indirectly on the algae. These fish and shell are also food stuff for human. Consequently, it is under investigation whether this overproduction and overuse of toxic chemicals to enhance the growth of crops paradoxically may be causing an increasing number of some of the neurologic diseases in children.
The present state of the art uses chemicals to enhance plant health by enhancing growth, or to suppress plant killers like diseases, insects, and fungi to ensure healthy plant/crop growth. However, there is no effective way to ensure appropriate types and amounts are applied, and when applied, if they will stay with the target plant or wash off. Thus, chemicals once thought to be relatively harmless have been applied with a broad brush. The broad brush is now being questioned.